Two of Kampala's property moguls, Godfrey Kirumira and Kasiwukira.

By Sam Simba Ntale

On average Jimmy Mugira, a designer operating in Printers’ Arcade along Nasser Road has been paying $1,025 monthly for the two roomed (5sq meters) premise on the second floor.

“The previous quarter of May, June and July, I paid $1,054 per month when the dollar was Shs 2,850; during the month of September, I paid $1,045 when the rate was at Shs 2,870,” Mugira said.

The desire by Kampala’s property owners to be paid in dollars might be their right in a liberalized economy governed by forces of demand, but it is one factor that has escalated the cost of doing business in Kampala. This trend has forced many people out of business due to the fluctuation of the dollar on the international market, and made others resort to selling on the streets, which have been now cleared by the city authorities.

Mugira said that in the past, he was paying a standard Shs 3,000,000 per month and this worked out without hindrances, but since last April the landlord told him to pay in dollars, a demand he could not object to because his tenancy agreement lacks a clause about the currency to use.

Asked what impact this has on his business, Mugira said, “Certainly we do pass it on to the consumer. It is natural that
any business exists on making profits and retaining much of it. So that explains the ever-soaring prices for our consumables.”

Swaibu Mulekwa, who rents a shop in City House along Luwum Street said property owners claim that their demand to
have rent paid in dollars comes as a result of the depreciation of the shilling since late 2009. The effect is price instability.

Hanah Kwagala who imports domestic hardware and rents a shop in Kikuubo at an average of $1,350 argued that while
Uganda’s economy also suffers global effects, nothing explains property owners demanding rent fees in dollars.

“Before they changed to dollars, I was paying Shs 3,350,000 per a month till February 2010. But depreciation of the shilling makes me pay anything between Shs 3,500,000 and Shs 3,850,000,” the 56-year-old Kwagala explains.

“What explanation do the property owners have for their demand, apart from finding it a better way to enjoy better value in dollars than in shillings? How are their properties, which have been standing for decades, been affected by fuel prices – one of factors governed by the strength of international currencies?”

According to her, these are some the internal problems contributing to the high cost of doing business in Uganda, which government has done nothing to alleviate. Meanwhile the traders too have to recover their operational costs by factoring it into the final prices for every item.

In a seemingly rehearsed answer, property owners ranging from small scale to large scale reached for a comment about the issue of paying rent in dollars attributed their actions to economic volatility.

“The economy is so volatile, with the shilling increasingly battered by international currency which poses losses, and the only way within our means to avert it is to compel our tenants to pay in dollars,” said Gupta Rajiv, owner of a mall on Wilson Road.

Asked of the recent impact, Gupta lamented, “I realize some of my tenants are leaving my shops because they cannot pay, and others are joining their friends who are sub-letting shelves and thus you find one shop rented by one person but also sub-let to others.”

According to Knight Frank, one of the leading property management firms in Kampala, the trend is that one retail unit
of approximately 10 square meters is subleased to five tenants as “stalls.”

“This makes the high rents quoted more affordable. We are of the opinion that these high rents will not be sustainable in the longer term and there will be a downward market adjustment as more modern and functional malls are constructed in future, closer to the consumers in the suburbs,” an official of the firm who preferred to remain anonymous said.

He added that “the prime retail malls within the Central Business District have reached rentals of between $25 – 30 per square meter per month inclusive of service charge. Anchor tenants are usually able to negotiate relatively lower rates, owing to the large space that they occupy and their covenant strength.”

Efforts to contact government authorities ranging from urban authorities to government economists at ministry of finance were denied.

However an official who preferred anonymity, claiming he was not authorized to speak to the press, said, “I tell this in confidence. Nothing else explains the behaviour of property owners but the urge to earn in better value and keeping it in
international currencies.”

Asked what government can do, the official said that “the only thing government can do is to rescue the shilling from further battering by international currencies, but we cannot put a stop to it even when the shilling is stabilized for a century.”

By Lindsay Kunkunda.

It used to be easy to define jobs in Uganda along gender lines. Secretaries were women, for instance, while men were
drivers or lawyers.

The winds of change have been quietly sweeping through our streets. Women ventured into the army and police forces. Men started making and selling women’s clothes. Women are graduating as land surveyors. Men are now not ashamed to be professional dancers.

All of a sudden, it would have to be an extreme situation to see an eyebrow raised and hear someone ask, “Hold on, isn’t that a job for the opposite sex?”

That extreme would be something like seeing a woman conducting a taxi, for instance. Except, I’ve even seen that with my own eyes. I was recently guided to an Ntinda-bound taxi stage along Kampala Road and advised to wait. Not for long.

It is easy to understand why Sylvia Nalubega can handle the stressful job. Her aggressive body language and loud voice leave no room for argument. With her big body build and her hair cut short, it is easy to mistake her for one of those men. One who just happens to have breasts.

After tavelling in the taxi, other passenger – both male and female – and I were firmly decided in favour of all conductors being women. While aggressive, Sylvia is polite and as far as public transportation goes, practices the epitome of customer care. She always said thank you to a disembarking passenger.

“Although it is difficult, I try not to engage in quarrels with passengers like my male counterparts,” she said. “The problem is with idle and disorderly men making funny comments and laughing at me to my face.”

Sylvia dropped out of school after primary two due to lack of school fees and went to work with her mother, a hawker of items like chewing gum and cigarettes, which is where she learned to work with money. She was encouraged to try being a conductor by her brother who told her she had the qualities to work as well as any man.

“My mother wanted to kill both of us, she really did,” laughed Sylvia. “But my brother was insistent. He assured my mother that in today’s Uganda, there is no room for appearances. The money you take home is the only order of the day.”

This same money business, according to Sylvia, is the hardest part about being a conductor.

“I do not mind the continuous shouting for customers and the jokes by men as much as I mind keeping track of the money,” she confessed. “I wish passengers knew how difficult it is to remember every face that comes in and the balance they should get back. For me, it is the most difficult part of the business.”

Good luck Sylvia, as you get the hang of it. Who knows, in five years, you may be managing a bank?

Let us now turn to another extreme: men who work in the beauty industry.

Enter Prince Emmanuel Golooba, who is a bridal attendant at Da Hair Zone in Nalubega Complex, along Bombo Road.

When I first met Prince, he was working on the hair of a friend of mine who was getting married the same day. (God works in mysterious ways. A front row ticket to a topic I’m supposed to be writing about!)

He did something with her hair. I cannot recall exactly what. Lots of twisting and twirling, beads and pearls. By the time he was finished, I was a little worried that my friend’s fiancé would fail to recognize her after lifting her veil. She looked sensational.

“It’s ironic that as a young man, I had no interest in hair whatsoever,” Prince chuckled. “I only went to beauty school in Kenya because my family had no money. It was a vocational choice.”

That vocational choice enabled Prince to be comfortable working with makeup and teaching women to model. But he decided he wanted to settle down and work around weddings.

“I used to own a salon called Sparrows, which I started up with some friends,” Prince recalled. “We broke up because they lost interest in the profession.”

In 2008, after 16 years in the beauty industry, Prince opened up Da Hair Zone with a friend. He only deals with the brides, and she manages the other clients.

“I’ve enjoyed my work. Because I am good at it, it is a comfortable job with no stress,” Prince said. “But I am now restless. It’s been too long. I feel like it’s time to start another career.”

While Prince bids adieu to hair, how about wrapping your mind around the idea of two women who only a year ago said hello to money lending?

Further introspection should reveal that this is not something to marvel at. Everyone knows that while the father is the head of the household, it is the mother who runs it.

Irene and Mary (not real names, for obvious reasons) are two sisters who run a loan shark business in Energy Plaza next to the old taxi park. I was not allowed to disclose its name for ‘security purposes.’

When I entered their premises, I initially assumed that it was a shop ostensibly selling electronic gadgets at rather cheap prices. Then I saw the furniture in the corner of the room and realized that this was the property of loan defaulters. A modern day pawn shop.

I was led to an office discreetly located in the back where the two sisters sit. Christian music was playing from a stereo and I had to ask why. These are loan sharks. Surely rock and roll and heavy metal (very heavy metal) would be more appropriate.

I was informed by the young women that they are born-again Christians. I was astounded. How do they manage to run this business that calls for a good deal of ruthlessness? How do they turn the other cheek and forgive their neighbour?

“Our faith keeps us focused and patient,” revealed a soft-spoken Irene. “Also, we will never lend money until we have the security safely tucked away with us.”

Yes, but what happens when someone defaults?

“I am the one who calls them to remind them,” Mary spoke up. “We give our borrowers an extension of two weeks. After that, we add interest which they have to pay back with the loan.”

Yes, but…what happens if someone defaults?

After a heavy pause, Irene answered delicately, “We have people we call to handle the situation.”

It may be a good idea to keep your wits about you when borrowing money from a woman. Hell hath no fury and all that.

But I was still confused. If someone has left you with security worth the amount of the loan, why does the situation need handling?

At this point, the two sisters were staring at me stonily and I decided it was time to be afraid, and leave.

I guess the generosity and kindness of Christianity can only be maintained for so long.

Let us end with another man who works in the beauty industry. Male manicurists are a common sight in salons. No one ever questions why.

Mark works with Flavia’s Beauty Salon, also in Nalubega Complex. He has his own ideas as to why men make better manicurists than women. He lowered his voice before telling me why.

“People are deceived in thinking that nails are a principal interest for women,” he sneered. And I mean, really sneered.

Mark is always shocked at the poor state of hygiene in which women keep their nails.

“My clients think I do a good job in order for them to keep coming back, but that is not true,” he said scornfully. “I do it so that I can maintain their nails in a first-class state. I am an artist. It pains me to deal with cracked heels and cuticles competing in length with nails!”

Mark dropped out of school after senior six, and joined the manicuring business with a friend.

“At first, it felt odd to me, to hold women’s feet. It was also unpleasant,” he said. “But after a while, I became obsessed with holding this disaster of a foot in my hand, and ensuring that when it leaves my salon, it is ‘Mwa!” He blew a kiss in the air to emphasize his point.
At this point, I was starting to suspect that Mark’s clients were not really interested in his handiwork. He was probably a stage comedian in his former life. He had a very interesting way of expressing himself.

“It’s not just feet, it’s also hands,” he sighed. “Please ask your female readers to buy hand lotion. You can get a good one anywhere for Shs 5,000.”

My laughter was cut short when he offered me a free manicure and pedicure. I counted my blessings that I was wearing closed shoes and politely declined. My feet would have given him a heart attack.

Better food storage facilities are key to halting the skyhigh food prices that affect African countries when production dips, whether because of harsh climate conditions or crop failure.

In a few years, Uganda will have less storage problems after Iran Agro Industrial Group finishes its multi-million dollar silo project. Iran Agro is a subsidiary of Tarashkadeh Company based in Iran.

The company’s managing director in Uganda Mohammed Musavu, said the silos, when completed, will have the capacity to store produce from their own Green State farm in Gomba District.

Green State farm is part of the National Enterprise Corporation farm in Gomba where the Iran Agro Industrial Group is raising cows, goats and sheep and growing crops like beans, sunflowers, soya beans and red berries.

According to the farm manager, Namanya David, the plan for building silos follows lack of proper storage facilities for their produce, which forced them to sell it quickly instead of storing some for future consumption.

“We started this farm four years ago, but we are overwhelmed by the growth and sometimes limited market due to perish ability of the products,” he said. “That is why silos are required so that we can store some of the unsold produce for future transactions.”

The company also has an abattoir in Gomba where animals from the Green State farm are processed for both local and foreign markets. Among other future projects on the way is silk farming and processing.

Iran Agro Industrial Group, which started operations in Uganda eight years ago, is a supplier of Iranian-made furniture, solar lighting systems and agricultural equipment in Uganda at affordable prices. They also supply tractors, trailers, ploughs and stalk shredders, planters with fertilizer distributors, potato diggers, threshers, mills, cultivators, furrowers and sprayers.

Workers opening one of the cartons containing the bicycle parts

By Savio Kyambadde

A few weeks after parliament’s investigation into the failed supply of 70,000 bicycles, the first batch of 1,200 bicycles has finally arrived in the country. The bicycles were delivered by Four Ways Group and
shown to officials from the ministry of local government ahead of a future handover.

Inspecting the batch at the Naguru container depot, Muhanguzi Kasahaka, the permanent secretary for the ministry of local government together with officials from the ministry said they would not receive the bicycles until the ministry of works certified that they were the right specifications. Reacting to press inquiry why only 1,200 bicycles were delivered instead of the 30,000, Kasahaka said they did not expect 30,000 bicycles to come on the same day.

“According to the original shipment schedule. They could not have all the 30,000 bicycles because they would fill the whole ship and would not have where to be kept in the warehouse,” he said. “About the other deliveries we have not confirmed but the documents we received in August indicated that they are on the ship. When they arrive we shall come over and see.”

“These bicycles we have just received represent about a recovery of approximately Shs 300 million,” he added.

The team that inspected the bikes included Yasin Sendaula, an assistant commissioner for urban inspections; Helen Awech, head of the internal audit division; Yerusa Nyangoma, head of the procurement unit; and Sam Emorut Erangot, the assistant commissioner for policy and planning.

This delivery follows an investigation by the parliamentary Committee on Local Government and Public Service over the missing bicycles after the money had been paid, and the arrest of Patrick Bernard Bagarukayo, who allegedly took $510,000 (about Shs 1.4 billion) meant for procurement of 70,000 bicycles.

Details presented to the committee indicated that although there is no clear connection between Bagarukayo and Amman Industrial Tools and Equipment Ltd – an alleged subsidiary firm of an alleged ghost Indian-based firm, Amman Impex Ltd, contracted to supply the bicycles – Stanbic Bank allowed him to withdraw money from the company account to his personal account.

However, even without any official authorization to withdraw money from the account, Stanbic Bank officials told the committee that Bagarugayo was a local representative of Amman Impex Ltd. Arjunan Rejesekaran is also wanted by both police and the local government and public service committee of parliament for failure to supply the bicycles.

I was so excited by my first mapping expedition, you might have thought I’d just gotten back to Earth from mapping the far side of the moon. I had been charting the areas around Ggaba town on the edge of Lake Victoria. The job involved marking points of interests and taking photos of local scenes, which were uploaded to the Internet and will become a fixture on Google Maps.

I was privileged to join one of several groups from the dozens of experienced Google Map Maker (GMM) colleagues who had come to Uganda from other African nations. They have already pioneered map making with the tools we used, mostly mobile phones.

While listening to stories they told about how they have mapped roads, towns and villages in Cameroon, South Africa, Tanzania and a host of other countries I was thrilled to discover how simple it is to plot locations on a map. And now here I was walking along the streets of Ggaba noting down the names of different offices and shops, copying contact information and collecting crucial Global Positioning System (GPS) information.

I gathered the precise three dimensional location of, for instance, the St. Francis Clinic or the shop with the Barber Salon sign painted above the door. This was a momentous – perhaps historic – moment, it seemed to me. I tried to imagine myself as one of the great explorers, identifying with Speke and Livingstone, or the famous intrepid duo, Lewis and Clark, who, in the early nineteenth century, risked their lives to chart hills, rivers, mountains and valleys of the Pacific Northwest. Their graphical description of what lay beyond the known world to the west paved the way for its exploration and settlement. I suddenly understood what drove them.

Indeed one of the reasons for my writing to you is that I am hoping that some of you will join us, throw caution to the wind and be a part of the next mapping expedition. Not interested yet? Let me try to tell you a little about what I saw. And make no mistake, it really is not an exaggeration to say that before we had properly mapped, say, intricate details of Ggaba market we, and most of the rest of the world, were blind to them. Yes, it’s about seeing, about being able to visualize. To behold in the mind’s eye a more accurate picture of what is on the ground in that market place, where men in long white coats and white gumboots standing on tables laden with newly landed tilapia fish, shout out the price for fishmongers to bid for a prized catch. You could just about smell the freshness of the fish, so carefully described are the details given by the mappers whose photos of the fish auction might come into view as one hovers over the map on their hand device, be it a phone or a tablet. It could possibly even include a short video with the sound of the auctioneers.

After we had collected the information, we gathered at the Meera Conference Room at the Speke Resort in Munyonyo, the venue of our Google Geo Summit. Each of the five team leaders would give testimonials with advice on lessons learned from their visit to Ggaba, before we would knuckle down to the donkey work of collating the information we’d gathered and uploading it to Google Maps. We were admonished to be mindful of the local community’s sensitivities, whose concerns about their own security and privacy would need to addressed. By reaching out to explain what we were doing we could avoid unnecessary misunderstanding or hostility.

A local official who challenged one of the groups was quickly put at ease once it was explained to him, though we were also reminded that government installations, including police stations, were off limits for photos or filming.

We were about to begin the work of EDITING THE MAP – that is we would be supplying the discoveries we had made about Ggaba to the rest of the world. Once the new information we entered on the Google Map Maker server-in-the-cloud had been approved it would be there for all to see. Indeed, on the Map Maker website one could even see the yet-to-beapproved new information from some of the other mapping teams and compare notes before submitting one’s own details. It is a straightforward process of diligently submitting the details that were missing on the map, piece by piece. Some of the streets did not yet have names, but that would be a task for local officials. Whether or not one’s point of interest was indeed a point of interest was somewhat arbitrary, yet it was noted that common sense should prevail in cases of doubt. It may comfort you to know that, although anyone may edit Google Maps, Google has built safeguards to ensure that edits are done responsibly and a verification process is in place such that levels of moderation in the approval process depend upon the track record of each of the editor-mappers.

Now let me try to paint the bigger picture of how important these maps are and will become and how they will improve the quality of life for you and me. Some of you will have heard about Ushahidi – the interactive mobile phone-based crowdsourcing software that uses Internet and mapping for visualizing on-the-ground realities. It enables aid agencies and emergency services to better coordinate their responses to disaster management, saving lives and lessening the suffering of earthquake victims. Route planning is another extremely useful service available to those of us who are travelling to unknown destinations by way of these same mapping technologies.

However before we can enjoy the full benefits we have to find a way to fill in the huge unpopulated areas on our maps. One way to do this is to organize mapping parties with activist groups such as the Scouts, Rotaract, or other youth groups of one sort or another. Some of us organized presentations and training in Google Map Maker and Open Street Map at the recent Scout Jubilee. During one of the presentations a couple of Dutch visitors arrived on their bicycles and I was surprised when one of them asked for me. She was holding her mobile phone up for us to see how she had found us with the Open Street map on her phone. Way to go!

By Andrew Green

A home in Bulambuli District on the edge of a newly formed cliff. (Photo by Andrew Green)

The rains that have pounded Mount Elgon these past three months have devastated Mike Wogigona’s neighborhood in eastern Uganda’s Bulambuli District.

A tree perched on a hill above his neighbor’s house slid down an embankment in a heavy storm a few weeks ago. It came to rest diagonally next to their front door. Boulders wider than cars have been dislodged and now sit precariously on the few spots of flat land in this hilly region. And a network of cracks zigzag across the district, belying much deeper rifts in the soil and threatening an imminent collapse.

Wogigona’s house now stands at the edge of a newly formed cliff. And with every rainstorm, the edge of the cliff gets a little bit closer. “We’re at God’s mercy,” he said.

Wogigona and all of the residents living on the eastern side of Mount Elgon are facing an ongoing crisis. Over the last two years, mudslides have devastated the region, killing hundreds. But short of an extensive relocation effort, the death toll will continue to rise as each rainy season brings new slides. Wogigona worries that his village might go next.

In the absence of promised government assistance to relocate, residents have begun moving themselves – leaving their ancestral homes and their farmland in order to save their own lives, but with no place to go and no jobs waiting for them.

Stay or go? Mudslide or financial desperation? As the rains continue, that’s the choice that faces the people of Mount Elgon.

Most of the land on the eastern face of Mount Elgon is overpopulated and overfarmed, according to a report from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). Subsistence farmers – the majority of people living in the area – have chopped down the trees that hold the soil in place.

“In most of the areas, people are just here,” said Kevin Nabutuwa Busima, the assistant director of disaster management at the Uganda Red Cross Society. “Most of the soil is now loose. Whenever it rains heavy, the soil gives way and then it just starts coming down.”

The result is death, but also complete disruption of the lives of survivors. Schools, roads and farmland have been destroyed on the slopes and disease has threatened as sanitation dwindles. There has been a recent rise in malaria cases, according to Red Cross officials.

Residents praise the reaction of the government and NGOs in providing survivors with food and water after the mudslides and offering coffins to bury the dead, but there is little evidence of anything being done to proactively address the problem.

The NEMA report faulted sub-county and district government officials for not making recommendations to mitigate the problem. And following an August mudslide that killed at least 24 people in Bulambuli, Moses Ecweru, the state minister for relief and disaster preparedness said the government simply did not have the funds to respond to all of the country’s natural disasters, let alone take steps to prevent them.

Even with unlimited money, preventing future mudslides is no easy task. More trees can be planted to try and gird the soil – an initiative various agencies and government officials have encouraged and some residents of the Bulambuli District said they have tried. And NEMA calls for stronger family planning initiatives to ease further pressure on the mountain and for more sustainable farming techniques to be introduced.

But the bottom line is people are going to have to move. The slopes of Mount Elgon simply cannot sustain the number of people who are living there.

According to the Bulambuli district council, at least 50,000 people in that district alone need to be moved. But so far the relocation money has not been forthcoming, despite promises as recently as last month by Ecweru. Representatives from the ministry for disaster preparedness declined interview requests for this story.

“Government has not planned for it,” said Woginina. “They tell us to be patient as government plans.”

In the meantime, all local government and Red Cross officials can do is respond to immediate needs for food and medicine and hope that the rains end soon.

“I think it will continue getting worse, because it is still raining,” said Agnes Mukoya, the manager of the Uganda Red Cross Society’s Sironko branch. “Until it stops raining, that’s when we can safely say the situation has normalized.”

Woginina cannot wait for the situation to normalize. He said at least 90 percent of the families in his village had already packed up and moved – his included – even without government assistance. He had lived in the area for 46 years – his entire life – but the knowledge that each rainstorm brought possible homelessness or death had convinced him it was time to go.

Stephen Botto almost waited too long. Botto has lived in a village a short distance from Woginina for 48 years and he can recall landslides in his area from as far back as 1988. But it was only after mudslides swept away the homes on both sides of him, killing 13 people, that he decided it was time to go.

For three days leading up to 28 August, he said his village was pelted with heavy rains.

“It went from morning up to sunset,” he said. “And then throughout the whole night. We heard noises made from these hills. Things falling… Some of us imagined this could be the end of the world.”

At one in the morning, three of his neighbors banged on his door and told him that “our friends have died.”

He took his cell phone flashlight and went to investigate. The house to one side had been moved 20 meters from its original position and was covered by mud. All nine people who had lived there were dead. The house on the other side had completely disappeared, along with the family inside of it.

Botto moved the next day.

The road to his old village was only recently rebuilt. It veers slightly from its original course – the original path is still strewn with the remains of houses and shelters that were destroyed in the slide. He told his story in the middle of a light rain, under the thatched awning of his house, which had somehow survived.

“I only come here to feed my animals,” he said. He is renting a home in a village at the base of the mountain “and we’re not going to come back.”

Like many of his neighbors, he is nervous about the decision to leave. Without government assistance, the rental house is straining his resources. He still has animals, but his matooke and coffee farms were destroyed by the slide. Relief agencies have been helping his family out with food, but sometimes they do not make it and he goes hungry.

Botto said he is afraid he might have traded one potential disaster for another – the speed of a mudslide for a slow decline into financial ruin. He has already pulled his children from school because he can no longer afford the school fees.

The number of people like Botto and Woginina who have been displaced is not easily documented. Many disappear from the region in search of family that can take them in. Others leave and return once the rains stop. But as Woginina walks around his neighborhood, he points to house after house that have been boarded up and abandoned.

“People are scared of incidents,” he said. “But now we must look for land to settle all of these people.”

Botto has listened to the government’s relocation promises and still holds out hope that it will happen. But he said he is worried that if he is finally moved, it will be to a region far away that he is not used to.

“I want [government] to buy us land in places that we feel very willing to go,” he said. “Provided they can give us land where we want, we are all willing to go.”

By Timothy Kalyegira.

The Parliament of Uganda in session.

In October 1980, two months before the Ugandan general election, Brig. Moses Ali, the late Suleiman Kiggundu, former President Godfrey
Binaisa and President Yoweri Museveni flew to Libya to meet Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

They sought and received Gaddafi’s support for the guerrilla war they planned to wage if a UPC government was formed after the December 10 general election.

It was Gaddafi’s weapons and money that transformed the NRA from the near rag-tag guerrilla army it was, to the force that started gaining rapid military victories after 1984.

Colonel Gaddafi’s death on 20 October and the gruesome and humiliating manner in which he met his death, has sent shockwaves through much of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in countries like Uganda with which he had long-standing ties.

Several Uganda-based companies such as Uganda Telecom, the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel, the National Housing and Construction Corporation, Tropical Bank (formerly known as the Libyan Arab Bank) and others have had direct Libyan state investment.

A grand mosque atop Old Kampala hill that the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council had started in 1972, and which had remained incomplete for more than 30 years, was finally completed with Gaddafi’s financing and named the Gaddafi National Mosque.

The other entity that faces an uncertain future following Gaddafi’s death is the kingdom of Toro in western Uganda. Gaddafi, fancying himself a new pan- African monarch, heavily invested in the Toro kingdom and the royal family, sponsoring trips to Tripoli and above all financing the renovation and upgrading of the palace in Fort Portal.
Because Gaddafi more or less ran the Libyan state at his own whim, it is uncertain what will happen to these many Ugandan  projects and enterprises that he invested in.

It will not be easy for the new National Transitional Council (NTC) government in Tripoli to establish which are Libyan state assets and which are Gaddafi’s. And some might start to face financial difficulties.

The new government will certainly not have the same indulgent view of Uganda as Gaddafi did and so a vital source of foreign investment and revenues that used to come from Libya is most likely to dry up.

Gaddafi’s ouster from power and subsequent death brings President Museveni nearer the top of the list of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. Only a handful of leaders like King Mswati III of Swaziland, Presidents Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Paul Biya of Cameroon have ruled longer than Museveni.

Gaddafi’s death makes Museveni look awkward, just as it does the western world that enthusiastically supported the “Arab Spring” uprisings. After all, if it is true that Arab populations that have been stifled by long-serving leaders in Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Syria, why is it not equally true that 25 years of Uganda under one leader is quite enough?

The parliamentary debates over the oil contracts .

For several weeks in September, a number of members of parliament started a petition for a recall of parliament for a special session to review the petroleum drilling contracts between the Uganda government and the Anglo-Irish oil company Tullow Oil.

This petition appears to have been triggered by the latest revelations from the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks in which U.S. diplomatic cables to Washington mentioned incidents of bribery and influence-peddling on the part of President Museveni and a few powerful cabinet ministers.

Not long after that, a document or set of documents made their way into the public domain, purporting to provide documentary proof that what had been alleged by Ugandan sources in private discussions with American diplomats in
Kampala.

The documents at first glance seem authentic. They mention a bank in Malta and display a list of what look like international money transfer details to a genuine-sounding company in Nairobi.

Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that most of the documents, except perhaps the cover letter, are a forgery. Many people have speculated that the documents came from a European or North American rival to Tullow which currently is the lead driller of oil in Uganda.

However, it becomes clear after closer examination that whoever wrote these documents must have been a Ugandan. All cash figures shown end with a zero. Even the exchange rate is given as a rounded figure of 1.00000000 and so on. It is only in countries like Uganda whose currency no longer has fractions that these kinds of things happen. No cents, no odd numbers, no prices like 435 shillings or 1,307 shillings.

Also, the essence of the documents points fingers mostly to powerful Ugandan ministers and barely to Tullow.

Whoever authored them knows the Ugandan power structure, knows Ugandan politics and knows the effect that listing certain individuals like Sam Kutesa will have on Ugandan public opinion, which is already suspicious. In other words, whoever authored the documents seemed more intent on inflicting harm on the Ugandan ministers mentioned than on Tullow.

It seems possible, at least according to this writer, that the author or authors of the documents is somebody from deep within the government calculating on discrediting the ministers mentioned in the report.

The cover letter that accompanies the documents has the ring of authenticity to it. Whoever forged the documents must know this and decided to provide “evidence” that would authenticate the claims contained in the Wikileaks documents.

However, the motives and scheming by the author of the documents aside, this saga, intense national interest and live broadcast of parliamentary debates on the bribery allegations have achieved one thing: They have made it clear that the NRM government is going to have to be very careful in how it handles Uganda’s oil wealth.

Resumption of the “Walk to Work” protests.

The campaign that started in April dubbed “Walk to Work” and coordinated by the Action for Change pressure group, resumed in October after a lull of several months.

The Uganda Police swiftly broke up the protest walk and held the president of the Forum for Democratic Change party, Dr. Kizza Besigye, under virtual house arrest for more than a week at his Kasangati home.

When the Walk to Work campaign started in April following February’s general election, it was a novel idea and produced the most sustained protests of any kind Uganda had seen since independence.

But by October, the novelty had worn off and both the number of well-known public figures walking to work and the media coverage had reduced.

Even though the Walk to Work effort this time was less effective than the first round in April, the state clamped down hard, issuing charges of treason against the activists whom the police had arrested.

For the NRM government to get to the stage of charging civic activists with treason just for the act of walking to work reveals the fractures within the government and the fear it has of an imminent mass uprising.

Armed rebellion in Uganda over oil?

For most of the period after 1986, the armed rebellions that raged in Uganda took place in the northern and northeastern parts of the country.

People from northern Uganda had dominated the military and politics for 24 years since independence and therefore the rise to power of the Bantu-dominated NRM in 1986 was a enough of an incentive for many groups to sustain a rebellion in northern Uganda.

A few armed groups like the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in 1992 and Major Herbert Itongwa in 1995 attempted to wage war against the Museveni government from bases in central and western Uganda, but there was not a sufficient reason for young men to join these rebellions.

There was a feeling that the south and west of Uganda were by and large better off under Museveni’s rule than the two decades before.

But now has finally come an issue strong enough not just to unite ruling party and opposition members of parliament in their call for a public disclosure of the oil contracts, but to interest and anger the general population.

With an increasing number of Ugandans living in wretched conditions and desperate poverty, oil is a cause that is persuasive enough to rally a guerrilla war around.

The persistence of Nigeria’s armed groups like the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), fighting to ensure that the Niger Delta gets its fair share of the country’s oil revenues, is one example of how emotive oil and other high-value natural resources can be.

Because the oil fields are located around the Lake Albert in Bunyoro, a Bantuspeaking area, oil is such an emotive national issue that it can stir enough people from central and western Uganda to take up arms under the pretext of fighting to protect the oil from corrupt deals.

By Edward Ronald Sekyewa

The decision to recall parliament from recess on October 10th to discuss oil matters did not come easy. But when it came to pass, it left an unprecedented resonance that will forever be tagged on the six-months-old 9th parliament in the fight against corruption.
Although the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga was hesitant to call the august house, she has received kudos as one who has come out of the sludge victorious, though others have accused her of not “giving them attention.” But at the end of it all, she left three of her powerful party colleagues with a badly dented image and the executive arm of government in a precarious position.

Although the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party has the absolute majority in parliament, it was basically its members coming together with the opposition firebrands who drafted and appended their signatures to a petition calling for the house to convene and discuss oil, in light of the arbitration process that was yet to begin in London.

Government wanted parliament to pass the Shs 11 billion request to facilitate the lawyers who were to represent Uganda in this case.

The 9th parliament set a new precedent when almost all of them stood as one entity irrespective of party affiliations to bring the executive to account and shed some light on the oil deals that have long been a preserve of the mighty in government, which had cited security reasons to not discuss the issue in the public domain. But what transpired during the heated two-day debate opened the eyes of some ruling party legislators about how they were almost used by some individuals in government who did not want the oil debate to go on under the guise of “ensuring national security.”

On the floor of parliament, youthful MP Celinah Nebanda said, “As I was entering this house, we were told that we should not discuss oil issues for security purposes, but now I know that these people were trying to use us to protect thugs.” This was after she had heard the submission of the maverick and equally young MP Gerald Karuhanga who tabled dossier after dossier indicating the manner in which the then Security Minister and now Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kuteesa and former Energy Minister and now Internal Affairs minister Hillary Onek allegedly obtained bribes in billions from oil companies.

Before going for the plenary session on October 10th, the NRM parliamentary caucus sat in the precincts of parliament to be briefed about the oil sector intricacies by government bureaucrats so that they go to the plenary with a party position, but this failed after members thought otherwise. They wanted everything to be open and to debate on the floor of parliament without “hiding” behind the party. Efforts by the NRM bigwigs to convince the members to recall their signatures appended to the petition fell on deaf ears.

Even then, the government bigwigs did not know the storm that awaited them as they thought that members simply wanted to discuss the content of the oil agreement signed between government and oil companies. This however changed when they reached the floor of parliament and realized that there was more to things than they had thought. They were met with heaps of corruption accusations in a move that had been well prepared and executed by the authors of the petition.

In a brief presented to the NRM caucus before going to the plenary session of parliament on October 10th, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Irene Muloni said that her predecessor Hillary Onek had already handed to parliament the Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs), which the Ugandan government had signed with different oil companies. She said this was well documented in the HANSARD of June 29th, 2010, on pages 12033 to 12036. She added that MPs should indeed have access to these PSAs, but they are bound to keep the information confidential.

Reading from a “CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT” a copy of which Kampala Dispatch has seen, she lectured them on the confidentiality clause that is commonly found in international petroleum agreements for purposes of protecting the use and disclosure of intellectual property, data and information relating to an area under license. She stressed that some of the information captured in the PSAs is indeed confidential and that the disclosure of such is prohibited, as it would jeopardize the security of the country.

Muloni told the caucus that whereas all the PSAs signed by the Ugandan government are on favorable terms for the country, government tends to negotiate different terms with the different oil companies.

“Indeed there are notable differences in the PSAs that were negotiated in the late 1990s as compared to those negotiated in the mid 2000s,” she said. Muloni added that by availing the existing PSAs to the public domain, government’s ability to negotiate even better terms in the future PSAs will be derailed as the terms in the old ones could then form the benchmarks for future negotiations.

Still arguing her case as to why PSAs should not go public, the minister said that since Uganda had invested a lot of resources to develop these documents, it would be inappropriate to put such documents in the public domain for other countries to access such information without any restrictions.

On the issue of taxation, which opened a can of worms when government asked parliament to pass a Shs 11 billion bill for the arbitration process of a tax dispute between Uganda and Heritage Oil in London, Muloni told the NRM parliamentarians that the PSAs provide that all taxes shall be paid in accordance with the laws of Uganda, therefore tax disputes are supposed to be resolved in accordance with the dispute resolution mechanisms established under the Ugandan laws, and that this position was confirmed by the High Court in Civil Appeal No. 14 of 2011 between Heritage Oil and Gas Limited vs. Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), which ruled that that dispute should be resolved within the Ugandan objection and appeals process.

However, she added, Heritage used the general arbitration clause in the PSA to institute legal proceedings against the Ugandan government on matters pertaining to the capital gains’ tax in London.

“Although Uganda still argues that this is not a matter for arbitration, it still has to defend itself in London, otherwise the matter will be decided ex-parte to the detriment of government,” she asserted.

the consequences of halting the activities in the oil and gas sector that parliament instituted, Muloni said that any disruption through various moratoria to government to stop operations can have a farreaching impact, whereby some companies could abandon investing in the Ugandan oil sector in preference of other countries. It could also cause endless arbitration due to unilateral actions being taken in the country and the eventual increase in the country’s risk. She reminded them about the Bujagali project which was derailed in the late 1990s by the 6th parliament and the country has since then never recovered from the acute power shortages. This time, she said, “we could jeopardize investment in the capital intensive high-value infrastructure like the oil production facilities, refinery, pipeline, storage facilities and other energy-based industries.”

The minister asked the NRM members not to forget that government is battling two oil-related arbitration cases: one in Kampala in court and another in London. “What is at stake is more than US $900 million. If we win in London, then we shall almost invariably have an upper hand in Kampala. Any action taken could therefore prejudice the on-going Arbitration. This is a very serious matter,” she reiterated.

After addressing the NRM caucus, they went in for the plenary session, which began late. After the two-day historical debate where big government officials were squeezed on allegations of corruption in the oil sector, parliament on October 11th came up with a 10-point resolution in respect of regularization of the oil sector. Point 1 of this resolution is putting a moratorium on the executive arm of government on executing oil contracts and related transactions until the necessary laws have been passed by parliament to put into place the Oil and Gas Policy.

Among other resolutions, government was given 30 days to come up with the necessary laws and table them in parliament for discussion. Government was also asked to produce all agreements it has executed with all companies in the oil sector including the Memorandum of Understanding executed with Uganda Revenue Authority and Tullow Uganda Limited in March this year. Parliament agreed that there shall be no arbitration on any tax dispute outside Uganda, all positions that Muloni wanted her colleagues to push against.

MP’s also resolved that government desist from executing any contract in the oil industry with a provision or clause for confidentiality. The resolution also demanded that the three implicated ministers Amama Mbabazi, Sam Kuteesa and Hilary Onek step aside from their offices immediately pending investigations by the established ad-hoc committee. Government was also asked to withhold its consent to the farm-down transactions between Tullow Uganda Limited and Total and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) until the necessary laws are put in place.

When given an opportunity to defend himself against the corruption accusations tabled by MP Gerald Karuhanga, Sam Kuteesa said that the documents indicating that he had received over 17 million Euros in bribes from Tullow Oil were forgeries which he had seen a year ago from a journalist. Indeed in a press conference at State House Nakasero, President Museveni added his voice to Kuteesa’s saying that he too had ordered an investigation into these corruption allegations and found out that the documents from the Maltese Bank of Valetta were fake.

Hillary Onek said that he supported the idea of investigating the allegations that he also received 5.6 million Euros from the same oil company when he was still a minister in charge of the oil docket. He denied ever receiving the bribes.

“I have no account in the Emirates where that money is alleged to have been wired. When I heard of those allegations some time back, I went to Interpol and reported a case of blackmail,” Onek told parliament. He further stated that while still minister of energy, he strongly opposed the idea of going for arbitration in London, but that “that position was changed when he left that ministry.”

Onek was brutally castigated by Hon. Kassiano Wadri. “We Northerners are known for being fighters and not for being thieves, that is why I am very cross with one of our own being mentioned in this scam. If it is true he took that money, he is a disgrace to us and I will discipline him,” Wadri said to wild cheers from the house.

On his part, Amama Mbabazi dismissed the allegations that his daughter Nina Mbabazi was renting out a park-yard to an oil company, saying that those alleging such have their political motives. “Anyone wishing me out of NRM is just wasting their time,” he said. “My daughter Nina Mbabazi has nothing to do with that park-yard. But even if she was doing business with Tullow Uganda, what crime is that? My children do not ask me for permission to do business.”

MP after MP threw barbs at the “oil trio,” with MP Stephen Birahwa Mukitale saying that what is happening in Uganda’s oil industry is ugly. He cited an example of one officer of the army who bought five kilometers of land in the Bunyoro area where the oil is found and displaced thousands of families because he is scheming for oil business. In the Kampala Dispatch of April 2010, we reported that the same oil companies were not working according to the signed agreements with government, and that there were glaring inconsistencies in the oil sector. This was from a leaked audit report that was compiled by Ernst & Young on behalf of the Office of the Auditor General to review the operations of Hardman Petroleum Resources Limited whose interests in Uganda were later bought by Tullow Oil.

In that report, it was found that the company did not pay VAT to a tune of Shs 300 million for items they imported into the country which were non-oil related. The auditors then found that the company imported golf equipment, tennis balls and more for which VAT was never paid. According to the agreement, the oil company was only allowed to waive VAT on all imports of equipment needed for their petroleum operations and not for their leisure activities.

Other reports have since also leaked indicating that the agreements signed between the government of Uganda and oil companies favored the companies, thus the companies were bound to benefit more from the resource than the country.

The report titled “Contracts’ curse: Uganda’s oil agreements place profit before people” released in February 2010 reported that the Ugandan government was attracted by the signature bonuses which represent hard cash upfront and signed agreements with the oil companies which means that  the government of Uganda has taken contractual liability as a direct party to the agreement. In that report, it is advised that government avoids direct responsibility and unlimited liability by engaging a state owned enterprise, in this case the national oil company, as the contractual partner instead.

This, the researchers noted, would limit the liability of Uganda as a country, and it would only be the assets of the company that could be seized in case it comes to that. But in this case, it is the assets of Uganda as a nation that are on the line.

In the same report, it was noted that Uganda received a signature bonus of only US $300,000 for Block 3A, compared to a US $3.5 million which was paid to the government of Congo for Block 1.

“In this context, US $300,000 is a surprisingly small bonus knowing that oil contracts such as these determine revenue flows in billions of dollars,” the report noted.

Even then, it was noted in that report that there was no accountability to the bonus monies that had already been paid to government, and in which revenue stream they had been channeled. “That income has not appeared in any published budget and experts within the ministry of finance deny any knowledge of the money’s location and or use,” it is stated in the report. It adds that if government has failed to track and account for the destination of these relatively small bonus payments, it raises questions over its intention and ability to manage the larger oil revenues to come.

Uganda to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

While addressing the NRM caucus on October 10th, Minister Irene Muloni told them that under the National Oil and Gas Policy of 2008, Uganda would participate in the processes of the EITI in order to ensure collection of the right revenue and use them to create lasting value for the entire nation. At the moment, she said that government is still putting in place the necessary institutions and legal framework required for the gas and oil sector, and at an appropriate time, it will join the international outfit.

EITI provides for countries to publish monies they receive from such activities like petroleum production and how such monies are allocated.

She pointed out that besides the fact that government accounts to parliament and therefore parliament has an oversight role, the legal and regulatory framework for the oil sector will provide for government to publish the earnings that  accrue from the oil activities.

She, however, reminded them that “there are several external institutions out there who are anxious to have influence on Uganda’s young and emerging oil and gas industry.”

A seven member parliamentary adhoc committee has since been established to investigate the accusations leveled against the ministers. Headed by Werikhe Kafabusa, the committee will investigate among others the procurement process that was followed in identifying the companies involved in the oil sector and critically examine the agreements signed, including the Memorandum of Understanding executed between Tullow oil and the Uganda Revenue Authority

In Somalia today, you will see women police officers manning check points, the former Al-Shabaab revenue collection centre- Bakara Market re-opened, young boys playing a previously banned sport – football – on the open streets, press from all over the major houses reporting from the terrorists’ previously held training ground, Ugandan police officers working alongside the Somali police to compel the Somali people to observe law and order, the Transitional Federation Government (TFG) soldiers sharing a tent with AMISOM troops, and patients lining up to seek treatment from the AMISOM troop medical team. Capt. Dr. Dungu checked the pulse of a Somali woman who had been taught by religious extremists that it is a taboo for a woman to seek medical help, especially if it is fistula.

Welcome to Mogadishu city, just recovering from 20 years of interclan conflict and battle hostilities. A country where over the last few years, the airport was only accessible for people bringing in ransoms or goods and services to the militants or war lords, and where the sea port serving as a docking station for pirates.  A city where every building has at least one gunshot hole. But it is a new era, where citizens are only opening up now to realities and possibilities of the silence of the gun, substituted by new construction engagements visibly going on and possible investments.

Yet, the war of propaganda is taking shape, with unconfirmed reports that Al-Shabaab has yet again killed more AMISOM troops, in what should be the last signal that the 9,000-person force needs urgent reinforcement. This comes on the heels of yet another suicide mission that killed well over 70 innocent Somalis when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy market area. This is definitely the evil mindedness and cruelty of insurgents and extremists against life and a free society. The insurgents now avoid going to frontlines and target the vulnerable civilians. The majority of those who died are students, looking up scholarships and study opportunities abroad – especially in Turkey – a country that is making heavy investments in Somalia today.

We are left to wonder if this indeed is the “change in tactic” that the “abrupt withdrawal” from Mogadishu by the Al-Shabaab was portrayed to be. To turn up as suicide bombers and snipers. And these terrorists are playing into our minds, opening up communication channels and websites to create sympathy to win support.

But AMISOM and TFG are not taking anything lightly, as one of the commanders who preferred to remain anonymous said. “Africa has a duty to break the chain of terror, it is only that Uganda responded first. The duty at hand is to defeat terrorists in whatever form they come.

” However, good news comes from Kenya, which has deployed into Somalia after their tourism sector was seriously affected by the continued kidnapping of tourists across the border. This seriously affected their economy. Yet the Al-Shabaab leader Adan Ali called on people to take part in what he called a “holy war” against aggressors, threatening that Al-Shabaab will punish those who refuse to join their war against Kenyan troops.

The Kenyan Minister for Security George Saitoti said that the Kenyan territorial integrity is susceptible to serious
security threats of terrorism and he promised to “pursue the enemy, Al-Shabaab, to wherever they will be, even in their
country.” Kenya now confirms what President Museveni stated a few years ago that Africa should collectively deal with Al-shabaab.

For AMISOM, this is the best time for peace in Somalia, when everyone begins to feel right about deploying, as opposed to waitto- be attacked-and-respond attitude. It is the best time because every peace initiative is supported by the Somali people. The capital is returning to life and the world must not deny these Somali people an opportunity to live freely.

Yet, what these extremists want is for streets to remain closed and to have Somali people pay taxes to them. They want a place where terror can thrive and even be exported, as they did when they killed innocent Ugandans during the World Cup finals.

However, even with the continued successes being registered in the war against terror, we are probably years away from a toast to the everlasting peace in Somalia. But what is certain is that there is a new wave of gun silence and better attitudes towards freedom. And it is starting to bear fruits, especially in the hive of activities propelling Mogadishu, which is probably the most virgin area for big and long-term investment opportunities, especially in education, construction, oil and gas and the transportation sector.

Pamela Ankunda works at the Media Centre.

Hon. Mulindwa Birimumaaso

Only one of the ten resolutions passed on 11th October could not wait until the reconvening of parliament after its recess on the 25th. Resolution 10 states that “Government withholds the consent to the transaction between Tullow Oil (U) Ltd and Total SA and CNOOC, until necessary laws are put in place.” The transaction was to take place on 15th October 2011.

The Honourable Speaker was threatened with censure in case she failed to recall the house to address this issue. The mobilization tools were the leaked photocopied documents that Hon. Gerald Karuhanga tabled in the house. Whether the papers are forgeries or not, they did a wonderful job.

I suspect, however, that the urgency of this 11th October resolution can be seen in light of the fact that China was officially entering the Ugandan oil market at the expense of ENI of Italy, Exxon Mobil of America and others. This could explain the surfacing of the documents that Karuhanga displayed in parliament.

Ugandans should be alarmed, if my suspicion is true, because western oil companies are highly connected to the political power brokers of the world personally and institutionally and they have been known to do the worst to countries and leaders of small nations where their super profits and energy supplies are not given first-class attention.

The above is half a problem, but the final nail in the coffin is their reputation of keeping poor countries in a permanent debt trap and in a vicious cycle of poverty. Let us examine how a delay in Uganda’s oil development timetable would benefit these international forces and their possible alternative courses of
action:

•  The cost of this project will definitely go up and Uganda will have to pay more for the oil equipment, which means the real beneficiaries are the owners of the equipment, which will be earning a lot of money but doing no work. The expatriates will continue eating big as our children wait for another day.
• The delay can open up doors for those powerful companies who had missed out on the oil to make a comeback with seemingly better offers. They can give with one hand and take away with another.
•  Alternatively, if you were going to start Karuma Hydro Power Station with some money expected from some oil taxes soon to reduce on the power shortage for your small industries, you will have to wait for another day, and by the time you sort yourself out, the cost of the project will be four times higher and probably with a new company where they have controlling interests. Take the example of the Bujagali Hydro Project.
•  The delay can help these forces figure out a puppet regime from within the NRM (if they are not plotting to have one already) or the opposition, like they have done in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and many other countries. In Panama, they replaced General Omar Torrijos with General Manuel Noriega until he ceased to be useful to them, was arrested from his state house and whisked to America to answer why his people grow marijuana.
•  Lately, they have done it in Iraq. Today, contracts worth billions of dollars are being dished out to selected western oil companies. Libya is steaming up, spiced and ready to be served. The quick visits of Prime Minister Cameron of the UK, Sarkozy of France and Hillary Clinton of the mighty U.S. to Libya can attest to this.

My worries are indeed cemented when a reckless opposition plans a national Walk to Work riot at this trying moment, calling upon the youth who have nowhere to work to march the streets of the cities when our dear children are sitting for their final exams.

Back in 2002 when those forces were plotting to oust Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, they used the same tricks and it was reported in The New York Times then. “Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets here today to declare their commitment to a national strike, now in its 28th day, to force the ouster of President Hugo Chavez. His opponents contend that the strike will force Chavez government to collapse,” The New York Times reported.

John Perkins later wrote, “This is exactly how the CIA brought down Mossadegh of Iran and replaced him with the Shah. The analogy could not have been stronger. It seemed history was uncannily repeating itself, fifty years later. Five decades, and still oil was the driving force.’’

While I admired the innocent display of patriotism of the 9th Parliament and the unguided ideological missiles a few NRM MPs were firing at the leadership of their party, I was wondering who the invisible force that originated the “forged papers” might be. But while I read my not so favorite paper, The Red Pepper of
October 18th, the answer came to me in the equation of “ENI” + “The Idiot,” but behind them is a very powerful force called the CORPORATOCRACY.

Hon. Mulindwa Birimumaaso is a Senior Presidential Advisor.